


In another part of the forest

by Sheffield



Series: Dark!Gregor [9]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-20
Updated: 2013-08-20
Packaged: 2017-12-24 03:40:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/934872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheffield/pseuds/Sheffield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A planet is a big place, you know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In another part of the forest

“There’s something about that Haroche that sets my teeth on edge,” Clement Koudelka said at the dinner table.  
“I know,” his wife said, “Martya, pass the potatoes. Thank you. I know what you mean though. There’s something...”  
“Reminds me of someone...”  
Kou and Drou looked at each other and said quietly, simultaneously, “Vordarian.”  
“The one that Tante Cordelia bagged?”   
“Olivia, get your elbows off the table please. Yes, Delia, the Pretender. They’re nothing alike, obviously, but there’s something about Haroche, particularly just now, now that he’s swanning around town so pleased with himself for being the new Simon, that just... makes my teeth itch, if you know what I mean. Vordarian was just the same, after he’d started hanging around Princess Kareen but before he decided to make a play for the Imperium.”  
“Where IS Uncle Simon, anyway? I saw Tatya this morning and SHE said that one of the Vorfolse armsmen told one of the Vorbretten armsmen that Uncle Simon had been poisoned by Gregor.”  
“Poisoned?” Kou said sharply. “What kind of gossip is that? I hope you told her to take it back. Slanderous! About your Emperor, too. Gregor has been good to this family.”  
“He was a good boy,” Drou said quietly. “But he’s his own man now, lovie. When was the last time any of you saw him?”  
The Koudelka parents looked round the table at their four daughters, and saw each shake her head in turn. There hadn’t been a party in Vorbarr Sultana - not one graced by the Imperial presence anyway - for weeks. Team Koudelka’s cheerful willingness to step up - or step down - and make Lady Alys’ numbers match hadn’t been called on since... since Lady Alys had disappeared mysteriously on a shuttle sickbay along with Simon Illyan.   
“He’s cutting himself off from his friends,” Kou said.  
“Or being cut off?” Drou ventured. She had, after all, been the boy Emperor’s bodyguard and you don’t lose that way of thinking.  
“Haroche?”  
“I wonder...”

***

Jankowski was sitting in his usual seat by the window, next to a blond giant. “Roic, our new one,” he introduced. “Roic, this is Szabo, one of the Vorrutyers’ armsmen.”   
Szabo nodded, acknowledging the newbie, and slid into the seat opposite.  
“I hear there are some interesting changes going on,” he said. “Been up country with Lady Donna, while you’ve been sleeping.”  
Jankowski pursed his lips at the thought the Vorkosigan armsmen might have been sleeping. There were only four of them left, after all, to cover the house and keep everything right and proper while m’lord and lady were on Sergyar and the little lord was off doing who knows what.  
“Not so much sleeping as biding our time,” he offered quietly.  
“Ah. I hear the Emperor has a new man.”  
“Couple of new men, I hear. Zografos, one of them.”  
“He’s off world with Byerly Vorrutyer, you can forget about him for the moment,” Szabo said. “No, it’s the other one I meant. Baskin.”  
“Aye? Haven’t happened across the fellow yet. No, it’s another one with a greekie name I was thinking about. Laskaris, that’s the man. Remember that fellow Gerard? There was some sort of scuffle in the rose garden and he was killed. Accidental-like. And then Laskaris joined the service.”  
Roic was following this conversation like a spectator at a handball match, eyes flicking from face to face as he committed the names to memory. Zografos. Baskin. Laskaris.

“I’ll be driving Lady Donna over to the Vorlightly’s on Thursday. I might step in and see if there’s any good eating in their kitchen. Their cook is something else, I hear.”  
“Sounds like a plan. I’m off to Hassadar on Friday, check up on some business for m’Lord. Might take young Roic here with me. Used to be a District Guard, he did. He can pop in and visit some old friends while I’m doing my business, and then we might call in on the Vorpatrils on the way back.”

“Busy, busy” Szabo said grimly. “See you here next week then?”  
Jankowski nodded. A week is a long time. But com-nets are never as secure as a quiet word.

***

Angelika Dudakis was a homely girl whose usual appearance screamed “scholar”, which was entirely appropriate as she just graduated top of her class. She was spoken of in hushed tones as being destined for great things, or at least great things in the field of comparative anthropology in non-spacefaring societies with particular reference to the Barrayaran Time of Isolation and its parallels with various Old Earth cultures. She was doing rather well, the Professora thought; holding up her end of the conversation in the presence of several leading lights of her academic institution, the Professora’s husband who happened also to be one of the Emperor’s Auditors, not to mention various Vor Bores the Professora had rounded up to decorate the non-academic side of her dinner party conversation.

The girl had the practical application of her field down pat too, having scrubbed up rather well for the occasion, certainly well enough to have attracted attention from the Vor Bores, although you had to forgive the poor boys for their parents‘ lack of foresight in providing them with the requisite number of sisters to play this game on equal terms. Dudakis was proving adept at sliding out of the more personal questions thrown at her, and had managed to extract herself from Vorgallis without resource to a vorfemme knife or even the weekly self-defence classes the Professora knew she attended. Definitely a point in her favour, she thought; escaped from the Octopus without breaking into a sweat.

She would definitely Do, the Professora thought complacently.

“Angelika my dear,” she said genially as the party broke up, “could I have a word?”

The Vor Bores had resigned themselves to going home alone, or at least stag, earlier in the evening and the last Professor had had his creaking bones helped into an aircab along with a container of leftovers. 

“Professora?”  
“I just wanted to have a word about your travel plans. The scholarship takes you to Old Earth as I recall, but I wondered if you’d planned any holiday travel along the way before you start back into the research?”  
“It would be wonderful,” the girl said wistfully, “but we only call at Escobar and Beta for half a day each, I think. I doubt if I’ll have time to shuttle down at all.”  
“That’s what I was wondering...” Gently, gently now. If she understood too much it could be as bad as if she understood nothing at all. “You know I’m one of the awarding panel for the Vorbarra scholarship fund, of course? We have a few marks in reserve this year, because the boy who was going to Kibou-Dani had that unfortunate accident and couldn’t fulfil his entire itinerary, so we - the trustees and I - thought we might kill two birds with one stone and fund a break in your travel - if you’d be interested, that is? We might stretch to a couple of nights on Beta...”

And heaven help her if the wrong person in ImpSec found out what she was asking the poor girl to carry...


End file.
